Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, October 19, 2005

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Saddam Hussein appears before a tribunal in Baghdad in this July 1, 2004 file photo. Hussein and seven members of his Baath party, including his half-brother, will file into a marble-lined, chandelier-hung courtroom in Baghdad on October 19, 2005 to face the stares of five judges and the world. Two years after he was found hiding in a hole near where he was born, the former Iraqi president and his co-defendants are on trial for their lives on charges of crimes against humanity for the killing of over 140 Shi'ite Muslim men two decades ago. REUTERS/Karen Ballard/File 0 less

Saddam Hussein appears before a tribunal in Baghdad in this July 1, 2004 file photo. Hussein and seven members of his Baath party, including his half-brother, will file into a marble-lined, chandelier-hung ... more

2005-10-19 04:00:00 PDT The Hague, Netherlands -- Three years and eight months into the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the courtroom still crackles with explosive outbursts.

"You know perfectly well those people were butchered!" prosecutor Geoffrey Nice shouted at a former Serbian police chief while questioning him earlier this month about the deaths of more than 40 ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak during the winter of 1999.

"This is preposterous!" shot back the witness, Bogoljub Janicevic, his wire-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose.

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On the opposite side of the courtroom, on the fifth anniversary of his fall from power in Belgrade, the white-haired Milosevic sat impassively. But his face darkened several shades of red, as often happens when testimony heats up.

The length and complexity of the Milosevic trial helped convince Iraqi prosecutors that they needed to concentrate on a few key events rather than attempt to cover the full range of alleged atrocities during former President Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule, legal experts and observers said. Hussein's trial is scheduled to begin in Baghdad today, but his lawyers were expected to seek a three-month postponement when the special court convenes.

As Iraqi prosecutors prepare for the trial of Hussein, Milosevic's slow-moving case at the U.N. Balkans war crimes tribunal demonstrates the many pitfalls entailed in trying deposed leaders in a court of law: The defendants drag out their cases, they can intimidate witnesses, and any links to atrocities are usually concealed by layers of subordinates.

For the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- the first international war crimes court established since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II -- the long-running Milosevic courtroom drama is both a cause of the toughest criticism the tribunal has received and a symbol of its greatest success.

"The slowness sometimes doesn't give us the best image," Theodor Meron, president of the 25-judge tribunal, said in an interview. "But this is truly an historic case."

Speaking of the Iraqi court, Meron said it would have to guarantee the rights of its famous defendant to be credible to the public: "Any court dealing with atrocities has to pay particular respect to due process. There can be no cutting corners."

Meron, a native of Poland, spent four years in a Nazi prison camp as a youth.

The prosecution of Milosevic and 125 other people by the 12-year-old tribunal is creating a body of law that many legal experts say will serve as a guide for future war crimes tribunals worldwide. Iraqi judges as well as officials from newly established tribunals in Africa and the Balkans have consulted court officials recently.

Milosevic, 64, is charged with 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity spanning the 1991-95 war in Croatia, the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and the 1998-99 Serb crackdown in Kosovo. He could face life in prison; the court does not impose the death sentence. He denies all charges.

One of the greatest obstacles for prosecutors is the sheer force of the personality on trial, said Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the Yugoslavia tribunal's prosecutors and a former French newspaper reporter who wrote a book about Milosevic. Many witnesses at The Hague, like the onetime police chief, are Milosevic's former subordinates.

"Witnesses address him as Mr. President," Hartmann said. "Milosevic plays to the court, and Saddam Hussein will play to the court. They don't forget they were president. They don't feel what they did was a crime."

In the cases involving former heads of state, prosecutors often have no smoking gun, no direct evidence tying the defendant to specific acts. "You have to find the invisible ropes they're pulling," Hartmann said. "It's their orders that lead to the crimes. You have to find the insiders, and that's the most difficult."

Prosecutors have constructed their case around testimony and documents they allege show a chain of command that led to the head of state. They have called on midlevel police and army officers and have used internal documents to argue that Serb forces directed or supported by Milosevic executed campaigns of terror.